Domestic and International Constraints on the Core Executive

Abstract

The aim of this book has been to demonstrate that traditional conceptions of power and the constitution are inadequate for understanding the operation of the core executive. Constitutional notions of power are a myth, and approaches that rely on zero-sum conceptions of power are an oversimplification of the policy process. Consequently, the book has examined the mutual dependencies that exist within the core. However, despite the tendency of traditional approaches to see the core executive as a hermetically sealed, self-governing unit, these dependencies exist, not only within the core, but also between the core and the outside world. In this chapter I examine how the core executive is constrained both domestically and internationally by external actors, events and institutions. The very wide and prolific debate over globalisation has focused greater attention on the limits of government. For the so-called ‘hard’ globalisation school, liberal-democratic states are losing control over their own territory and ‘political boundaries are increasingly permeable’ (see McGrew 1997: 12). Therefore, I will assess the extent to which the constraints on the state have developed, and how they may have affected the core executive.